Christie signs law creating Rutgers 'powerhouse'

Following months of protests by students and faculty over a looming shake-up in New Jersey’s higher education system, Governor Christie signed legislation on Wednesday that ushers in an era of potentially enormous growth at Rutgers University, an outcome that the debate often overshadowed.

Rutgers, the state university, is poised to gain coveted dental and medical schools and attract more research dollars under the plan, hoisting it into the top 25 schools in the nation in terms of total grant funding for research.

The measure will merge most of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey into Rutgers by July 2013 — creating a bureaucratic and research behemoth with an annual budget of nearly $3.7 billion.

“Rutgers was already an outstanding school; now it’s going to be a powerhouse,” Christie said after a signing ceremony at the university student center in New Brunswick. “Rutgers doesn’t have to make excuses anymore.”

Christie introduced the merger plan in January, and much of the debate that followed was dominated by opposition from Rutgers-Camden, which successfully fended off an attempt to cede the campus to Rowan University in Glassboro, Gloucester County. State lawmakers raised questions about the merger’s cost but eventually signed off despite no estimate on how much money it will take to make the merger happen in the next year.

There is still no overall cost estimate, and no money has been allocated for the merger in the state budget. But the bills have been adding up, with the costs borne by the public schools involved.

Rutgers, for example, has contracted to pay “integration specialists” from PricewaterhouseCoopers more than $4.1 million over five months to help figure out the details. The university has rented office space for the firm in Piscataway and a dozen “integration teams,” composed of representatives from Rutgers and UMDNJ have been meeting for months, said Peter McDonough, Rutgers’ vice president for public affairs.

The groups are dealing with everything from union contracts to information technology issues to letterhead, said McDonough.

“A year is a very fast time on an integration of this kind,” he added. “There are thousands of employees, and we’re dealing with very big issues. But it certainly is doable, and the benefits are enormous.’’

All the schools have paid bond attorneys and other consultants to parse the deal.

Assumes debt

The fight over the merger at times obscured the larger benefit to Rutgers’ flagship campus in New Brunswick/Piscataway and in Newark, where the university’s footprint will expand substantially.

Rutgers will take on UMDNJ’s dental, medical and nursing schools in Newark. In New Brunswick it will gain the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, the School of Public Health and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

Rutgers will also take on UMDNJ’s sizable debt of more than $600 million and a good portion of the medical university’s $1.6 billion annual budget — added to its own yearly budget of about $2.1 billion.

Meanwhile, in South Jersey, Rowan will get UMDNJ’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Stratford to complement its own new medical school in Camden, which has just enrolled its first class. Rowan and Rutgers-Camden will collaborate on medical science programs under the direction of a joint board created by the legislation.

The merger was heralded on Wednesday as “a new era” by leaders at Rutgers, which has often lacked the recognition and influence of other flagship state universities.

“We will be well-positioned to dramatically improve our ability to win federal grants, attract top-flight faculty and students, expand health care options for New Jersey residents and foster economic growth,” Ralph Izzo, chairman of the Rutgers Board of Governors, said in a statement released by the university.

The legislation passed earlier this summer after months of wrangling and horse trading in what was viewed as a political victory for Christie.

“People yelled at us; we didn’t mind,” Christie said. “I think we actually enjoyed it on some level.”

In working on the merger with Democratic power brokers — the South Jersey businessman George Norcross and state Senate President Stephen Sweeney — Christie succeeded where two of his immediate predecessors failed in a major reorganization of some of the state’s largest schools.

“It’s about leadership, it’s not really complicated,” Christie said. “We just said we’re not going to take ‘no’ for an answer.”

Sweeney, who attended the bill signing, called it a “legacy day in New Jersey.”

The governor’s office orchestrated an elaborate bill-signing caravan on Wednesday, with Christie traveling from Newark to New Brunswick to Camden for three separate events at campuses affected by the bill.

Wednesday’s events were in marked contrast to Christie’s signing of a companion bill earlier this month that will place a $750 million referendum on the ballot in November to fund capital projects at the state’s colleges and universities. Christie signed the bill quietly, leaving supporters to wonder why the governor hadn’t taken the opportunity to promote the initiative. The bond bill moved forward after some legislators agreed to support the merger.

Christie praised that bill publicly on Wednesday, saying it would complement the merger. “I signed it, and I will vote for it in the fall,” he said.

He said he will also ask the Legislature to issue $540 million in bonds to help finance the merger. He said the debt previously had been approved for higher education.

A handful of students protested outside the event at the Rutgers Student Center on Wednesday, holding signs that read “What will it cost?” and “Show me the numbers.”

“We’re honestly scared there will be a tuition increase,” said Marios Athanasiou, a sophomore.